1. Introduction

If you are new to Unholy, this is a great place to start to get an
understanding of how the spec works. On this page we will discuss what
abilities you have, what they are used for within the specialisation, how they
interact with each other and also with important cooldowns. If you already
have experience with Unholy and are comfortable with it in Legion, it is
recommended you skip this section and move on to the rest of the guide.

2. Main Resources of Unholy Death Knights

Runic Power and Runes are your two resources. Throughout the fight, you
will look to spend as many Runes as possible and generate as much Runic Power
as you can, which you will then use to help you deal more damage.

3. Unholy Death Knight Basic Abilities

These are your core skills that are available regardless of talents, and
form the core gameplay of the specialisation.

Virulent Plague is a Shadow damage DoT that erupts when the
target dies, dealing damage divided among all enemies, and which also has a 30%
chance to erupt each time it deals damage. It is applied using
Outbreak and you should always have this active on the target at
all times.

Outbreak costs 1 Rune and applies a 6-second debuff to the target
which, for that time, causes it and any nearby enemies to become affected by
Virulent Plague.

Festering Strike costs 2 Runes, dealing Physical damage to the
target and infecting them with 2-3 stacks of Festering Wound.
Each Festering Wound stack deals damage to the target and grants you 3 Runic
Power when the target dies, or when the stack is burst by using
Scourge Strike.

Death Coil costs 40 Runic Power to cast dealing Shadow damage to
the target, reduces the cooldown of your Dark Transformation by 1
second, and restores 10 Energy to your ghoul.

Death and Decay costs 1 Rune and places a damaging area at the
target location, which persists for 10 seconds. While you are inside your own
Death and Decay, Scourge Strike will damage all enemies near to your
target.

Dark Transformation has a 1-minute cooldown and transforms your
ghoul into a more powerful version of itself for 15 seconds.

Death's Advance when activated increases your movement speed by
30% and prevents you from being slowed below 100% of your movement speed for 8
seconds. It also grants you immunity from knockbacks. It has a passive ability
that prevents your movement speed from being reduced below 70%

Anti-Magic Shell absorbs up to 30% of your maximum health in magic
damage over 5 seconds, and generates Runic Power based on the damage absorbed.
This should be used to mitigate magic damage throughout the fight, while the
added Runic Power will help increase your DPS.